This work explores ways in which the women’s values, as expressed through their personal and household possessions, were instrumental in constructing various forms of genteel society in alien settings in the context of the British Empire. Lawrence examines the transfer and adaptation of British female gentility in various locations across the Empire, including Africa, New Zealand and India. In so doing, she offers a revised reading of the behaviour, motivations and practices of female elites, thereby calling into doubt the oft-stated notion that such women were a constraining element in new societies.